Punchlines
by Jordanna Morgan
Summary: A collection of character-study double drabbles, all based on a prompt table that consists of "dark" themes.
1. Vigil

**Title:** Vigil  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** Mild PG for angst.  
**Characters:** Arthur Fleck.  
**Setting:** Between Penny's stroke and Arthur's visit to Arkham.  
**Summary:** Arthur sits with his mother in the hospital.  
**Disclaimer:** Joker belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I'm just playing with him.  
**Notes:** Written for the prompts of "Tomorrow" at Fan Flashworks, and "Words Unsaid" at Genprompt Bingo.

* * *

The steady beep of the medical monitors was deafening in the silence of the hospital room. It should have at least provided a comforting reassurance that Arthur's mother was alive; that she was still with him, and could still get better again. However, the sound only jangled his nerves as he sat by her bedside, his eyes never leaving her face.

What ate at him the most was that he'd never had a chance to apologize for being upset when he confronted her with the letter.

Surely she had done her best by him all these years. If anyone was to blame, it was Thomas Wayne: the father who disowned him. Of course she could never have said no to a man who wielded so much power. Had she tried, perhaps he would have done something even worse to her than leave her alone in the gutter with his child.

Arthur should have said he was sorry.

_Tomorrow_, he told himself firmly. Tomorrow she would wake up and be alright. Tomorrow he could tell her that he believed her, and he knew she had made all her choices with the best intentions.

Tomorrow he could still make everything be _different_.

* * *

**End Notes:** Of course, after a friendly chat with Thomas Wayne and a bit of light reading at Arkham, Arthur's _different_ kind of goes off the rails…

* * *

_2019 Jordanna Morgan_


	2. Chrysalis

**Title:** Chrysalis  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** PG.  
**Characters:** Unnamed stagehand and Joker.  
**Setting:** Before Joker is introduced on Murray's show.  
**Summary:** The stagehand watches Joker dance behind the curtain.  
**Disclaimer:** Joker belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I'm just playing with him.  
**Notes:** Written for the prompt of "Beauty" at Genprompt Bingo, and "Dance" at Drabble Zone.

* * *

On the set of "Live with Murray Franklin", the stagehand had witnessed how countless guests behaved behind the curtain. Some smiled and joked with the crew. Some remained aloof in their own thoughts, mentally rehearsing what they planned to say. Some just looked as if they would rather be anywhere else.

Yet he had seen nothing like the clown who stood waiting on _that_ night: a gaunt creature frozen in the dim blue light, smoke curling from a cigarette that rolled between taut fingers, the darker makeup around eyes and mouth casting a death's-head shadow on his white face.

The monitor showed a man unrecognizable as this figure, giggling and squirming like a child; but the stagehand missed the words, because his attention was drawn to a stirring over his shoulder. No longer a statue, the clown was in motion at last. His spine curved, limbs twisting and stretching as his entire body contorted in a haunting slow-motion dance.

It was like seeing some kind of eerie butterfly emerge from its chrysalis.

…Somehow, it was frighteningly beautiful.

"_Please welcome Joker_!"

The mesmerism shattered. Recollecting himself, the stagehand quickly parted the curtain, and watched the clown dance away into the light.

* * *

**End Notes:** When I was young, my mother would raise monarch caterpillars she brought in from the yard. I had the chance to see many a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis; and honestly, that was all I could think of the first time I saw the movements of Joker's cryptic dance behind the curtain. I don't think it was deliberately intended to evoke that image, but it's so incredibly appropriate.

* * *

_2019 Jordanna Morgan_


	3. Decision

**Title:** Decision  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** PG.  
**Characters:** Arthur and the (now mostly dead) Wall Street guys.  
**Setting:** During the subway shooting.  
**Summary:** Arthur chooses what to do with the still-smoking gun in his hand.  
**Disclaimer:** Joker belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I'm just playing with him.  
**Notes:** Written for the prompt of "Suicide" at Genprompt Bingo.

* * *

Two men lay dead on the floor of the subway car, and a third was running; and as Arthur reeled to his feet, gasping, the shock of it all overwhelmed him.

He had taken human lives. Surely that meant his own life was now over as well.

For an instant, the gun in his trembling hand turned toward his own head… but he was stayed by the wordless impulse of some far more primal will.

_I don't want to hurt myself._

Arthur had already hurt every day of his damn life. If it wasn't the physical violence of strangers with Gotham's poison in their souls, it was the embarrassment and despair of just being the freak he was. He'd never asked for any of it. He didn't _deserve_ it, when all he wanted was to make others happy. So why _should_ he lie down and die, while those who hurt him lived on without a care?

The thought evolved to its logical conclusion:

_Why _shouldn't _the people who try to hurt me be the ones who hurt instead?_

As he heard the third man crying for help somewhere ahead, a new resolve gripped him like steel.

…_This time, they will._

* * *

**End Notes:** Most everyone seems to agree that Arthur's shooting of the first and even the second subway attackers has some degree of grounds as self-defense, but the third who he actively pursued… not so much. Of course there is a practical motive for him in eliminating a witness, but it's quite clear he was driven by something deeper. In the heat of the moment, I don't believe it was a sudden newly-discovered _enjoyment_ of killing (yet; he was certainly there by the time he shot Murray). Rather, I believe his hunting down the third man was simply a feral urge to lash out and return the pain inflicted on him—not only by the three suits, but by _everyone_ who had ever been cruel to him. The overkill of the multiple shots fired into the man's body may point to this as well.

* * *

_2020 Jordanna Morgan_


	4. Sweet

**Title:** Sweet  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** Mild PG for reference to blood.  
**Characters:** Arthur Fleck.  
**Setting:** General, but references the climax of the movie.  
**Summary:** Joker has finally discovered an appetite he can sate.  
**Disclaimer:** Joker belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I'm just playing with him.  
**Notes:** Written for the prompt of "Flesh and Bone" at Genprompt Bingo.

* * *

His body was a bag of twisted bones, held together by little more than the pale, bruised skin that stretched over them too tightly.

Although self-conscious of his gaunt frame, he found little satisfying remedy. The doctors had always told him his laundry list of medications would affect his appetite—but they never mentioned anything about them destroying his sense of taste too. For as long as he could remember, _every_ food was flat and bland. As a result, with his stomach numb to cravings, and even the fleeting pleasures of flavor denied him as a comfort for his weary days, it was difficult to work up any enthusiasm for eating.

Sometimes he felt he could have starved to death without pain. Sometimes he wondered if he might want to; but in any case, he never tried. Not consciously, anyway.

Yet on _that_ night, everything changed.

On that night when he stood with the cheers of the mob roaring like blood in his ears… When he gathered the red from his torn lip, and drew it across his mouth to paint a savage new smile…

He discovered at last that there was _something_ which tasted sweet to him, after all.

* * *

**End Notes:** What can I say? In one way or another, blood is kind of a big deal for _most_ of my favorite fictional characters—so I was pretty much doomed from the start by the magnificence that is the Blood Smile.

* * *

_2020 Jordanna Morgan_


	5. Awful

**Title:** Awful  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** PG.  
**Characters:** Arthur Fleck.  
**Setting:** Joker's appearance on Murray's show.  
**Summary:** Joker reaches his fateful conclusion about Murray.  
**Disclaimer:** Joker belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I'm just playing with him.  
**Notes:** Written for the prompt of "Loss of Faith" at Genprompt Bingo.

* * *

Sitting face to face with Murray Franklin, Arthur wondered why it had taken him so long to see the man for what he really was.

His illusions of a fatherly paragon had first been shattered the night he saw himself on TV, the latest victim of Murray's ridicule. However, he now realized he should have seen the truth long before then. For years he had watched this man belittle his own wife, mock his own children, and all in front of a national audience. If Murray could have such contempt for those closest to him, then surely there was no compassion for _anyone_ beneath the genial visage he wore for the cameras.

Before it had been directed at him, Arthur used to think Murray's cruelty was funny.

Well, perhaps it _was_ funny in a way. It was funny that Murray thought he was somehow superior, the privileged possessor of an authority that gave him the _right_ to treat others so callously.

He was no better than the worst of them, after all.

Arthur wondered if it might surprise the self-imagined king of comedy to learn that he would bleed as red as the worst of them, too.

"…_You're awful, Murray_."

* * *

**End Notes:** In the movie, the examples of Murray demeaning his family for laughs include his referring to his son as "not so bright", and his casually dismissive joke of "Maybe my next wife!" while talking to Doctor Sally. With these instances popping up in just the little bit of his shtick that we see, I can imagine they're the butt of jokes for him regularly.

* * *

_2020 Jordanna Morgan_


	6. Hunted

**Title:** Hunted  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** PG.  
**Characters:** Arthur Fleck.  
**Setting:** During the train chase.  
**Summary:** He had never felt more alive.  
**Disclaimer:** Joker belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I'm just playing with him.  
**Notes:** Written for the prompt of "Dark Tone" at Genprompt Bingo.

* * *

The impact of the taxi barely registered. Stunned but intact, Arthur stumbled upright and kept running.

It was all going to end tonight, either way—but he was determined to end it on _his_ terms.

Up the stairs, to the train platform, and then he was squeezing through doors that lurched closed on newly-made bruises. He didn't feel that, either.

On the train a sea of clown masks greeted him, white plastic faces and flyaway green tufts echoing his new form. For a second as he caught his breath, the sight made his heart jump with something more than adrenaline.

_I did this._

Then the detectives were pounding at the doors. Head tilting, Arthur watched them squirm onto the train… and _smiled_ as his pulse quickened all over again.

This was a new kind of high, different from the rush of killing. When he took lives, he had been the one in control; but now he was a target himself, pursued like an animal.

He was finally _wanted_ by someone—if only because they had realized he was _dangerous_.

It was a magnificent joke, truly.

For a man who meant to die that night, he had never felt more alive.

* * *

**End Notes:** The glimpse is very fleeting before the camera cuts away, but I'm positive we see Arthur's lips begin to turn up in a smile when the detectives are boarding the train. I believe this is him at least subconsciously discovering that he enjoys the thrill of being hunted. It's yet another reinforcement of the lesson he has learned: bad deeds will gain him more attention than good. Going forward as Joker, I can definitely see him thriving on being "wanted" in this way, whether by the police or eventually some iteration of Batman.

* * *

_2020 Jordanna Morgan_


	7. Icon

**Title:** Icon  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** PG.  
**Characters:** Arthur Fleck.  
**Setting:** After Murray plays Arthur's video on his show.  
**Summary:** Arthur sees a brief light in the darkness.  
**Disclaimer:** Joker belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I'm just playing with him.  
**Notes:** Written for the prompts of "Crush" at Fan Flashworks, and "Hurt/Comfort" at Genprompt Bingo.

* * *

Arthur had endured a lifetime of blows, but watching his idol mock him on television was _nearly_ the most crushing.

It was a worse feeling than being fired from the job he loved. Maybe even worse than reading his mother's letter to Thomas Wayne. In the words of the great Sinatra, Murray had stomped on Arthur's dream: his one hope of creating a better future for himself, of finally being _seen_ by the world.

The only thing it _wasn't_ worse than was seeing his mother in that hospital bed. Even after his public humiliation, _that_ was the one image still frozen in his mind, as he lay despondently breathing her scent from the pillow while the TV droned in the background.

"_Protesters, many dressed as clowns, took to the streets today in one of several planned demonstrations_…"

Arthur sat up and looked toward the screen.

_Clowns_. A shouting kaleidoscope of greasepaint, wigs, masks, all mirroring the face he had worn as Carnival. Signs screaming angry slogans against the rich.

An unfamiliar sensation of warmth filled his soul as he smiled.

_If only for a moment, all these people _have _seen me… and now they want to be just like me._

* * *

**End Notes:** Nothing much to say here. Just a moment in which Arthur's pit of darkness is briefly lightened by the worst kind of validation.

* * *

_2020 Jordanna Morgan_


	8. Invisible

**Title:** Invisible  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** Mild PG.  
**Characters:** Arthur Fleck.  
**Setting:** Pre-movie.  
**Summary:** Sign-spinning jobs were the worst.  
**Disclaimer:** Joker belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I'm just playing with him.  
**Notes:** Written for the prompts of "Background" at Fan Flashworks, and "Isolation/Loneliness" at Genprompt Bingo.

* * *

Sign-flipping jobs were the worst.

At least when Arthur worked birthday parties and children's wards, his audience was happy to see him and easily amused. Kids had simple minds with rewardingly shallow reactions: a red nose and painted smile were enough to seize their attention, and the modest tricks he performed for them could hold it. No matter how rough a day he was having, they would accept him as funny for little more reason than that they _expected_ him to be. Their laughter was not the mature response to sophisticated wit that he longed to earn from adults, but for now it was _something_ to ease the craving for appreciation that gnawed at his soul.

On the other hand, there was only emptiness as he went through his motions on Gotham's sidewalks. Emptiness within himself, indifferently shilling some run-down business he had never set foot in; emptiness in the sea of faces that passed by, countless eyes never meeting his. Those days, he felt like he disappeared more than ever into the endless urban background.

How ironic that one could be the most colorful thing in a gray desert of concrete and steel, yet not even noticed at all.

* * *

**End Notes:** I think we can all agree on the assumption that when Arthur said he loved his job, he _wasn't_ referring to the sign-flipping duties. This piece might have worked especially well as an entry from Arthur's journal, which is how I first considered writing this collection… but unfortunately, I just couldn't bring myself to wrestle with his spelling. In any case, I hope these drabbles capture some of the thoughts he might have written.

* * *

_2020 Jordanna Morgan_


End file.
